destroy
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 4 U.S. 412 - The United States v. Richard Johns · 1806Most cited · 34 citing opinions
To destroy a vessel, is to unfit her for service, beyond the hopes of recovery, by ordinary means. This, in extent of injury, is synonymous with cast away. It is the generical term: casting away is a species of destroying, as burning is. Both mean such an act, as causes a vessel to perish, or be lost, so as to be irrecoverable by ordinary means.
How often courts cite the case defining “destroy”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “destroy” — 32 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.